


Last Christmas, I Gave You My Vallaslin...

by MakjangCandy



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age - Various Authors, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Humor, Asian Character(s), Asian MGiT, Christmas, Christmas Special, F/M, Female Character of Color, Filipino Character, Grief/Mourning, Hurricanes & Typhoons, Immigrant Narrative, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Character Death, Modern Character in Thedas, Modern Girl in Thedas, Romance, Satinalia (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27732646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MakjangCandy/pseuds/MakjangCandy
Summary: Solas gets a taste of his own medicine by someone whose heart he broke around Christmastime.Written for everyone, especially those who want Solas to feel the Lavellan side of Solavellan. What would Solas do if a person from another world tells him that he's not real?A completed MCiT story written as part of a Christmas Collection.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas, Fen'Harel | Solas/Female Lavellan, Fen'Harel | Solas/Original Female Character(s), Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Lavellan & Solas, Solas (Dragon Age)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 45
Collections: Satinalia 2020





	1. Words

Solas noticed that something was wrong with the Inquisitor the first time she dropped her accent.

“Putang Ina!” she cried, feeling up her ears as the rest of the party sat by the river. “Why am I in the game? Putang Ina, putang ina! Why am I so white?”

Firstly, he could not understand all the words to that. Has Modern Elvhen degraded so much to sound like that? Secondly, her hair and complexion had always been fair but it never seemed to bother her before.

Hours later, she ordered the party to return to Skyhold, where she retreated for weeks to ask the resident mages’ Enchanters to help her learn Chantry magic. It is fitting, she explained, for the Herald of Andraste to learn magic the way it is intended by the Chantry.

She never liked that title to begin with, so at least she said to him before. The title is an insult to her People. So what had made her change her mind so suddenly?

The second time he noticed was when they happened upon a Dalish Clan on the Plains. Its Keeper and its hunters were all too eager to meet the Inquisitor, showering the party with herbs, game and all the gifts they could spare.

“An’daran Atish’an!” greeted the Keeper. “Tuelanen i’na…”

To this, she nodded and answered in Common. And through these exchanges, it seemed that the only word she repeatedly gave them was, “serranas”--even for things she did not have to thank them for.

While she did allow the party to rest a bit and trade with this clan, he noticed her relief when they were miles away east of the river close to the fort filled with Undead. 

The Lavellan he knew would have taken every opportunity to not only express herself in her native tongue, but also would prefer the company of her own people over the Undead.

In the subject of company, perhaps the most glaring difference of this sudden change was demonstrated on how she appeared to dislike his company.

He showed her the Fade once and they shared a kiss. He asked for time to consider the implications of that kiss, and she agreed to keep her distance for the meantime.

But he did not think it meant the kind of distance where she constantly glared at him and utterly avoided him altogether. That was the kind of distance she was offering him at that moment.

Experiencing the Fade notably had brought changes to the mortals who roam its vastness. Yet no mortal could logically change this much.

Even after they exhausted most of the possibilities of resources, other mortals to help even with that one lost halla, she gave the order for everyone to stay in the Plains, and sent scouts looking for bandits and travelling Enchanters. 

She was clearly waiting for something.

Finally, Solas could not take it any longer. When he managed to get her more or less alone in the camp, he asked the question that had puzzled him endlessly, “Who are you?”

Her brow furrowed but there was no surprise there. It was as if she was expecting the question. “At last, I was wondering when you’d notice.”

“What have you done with the Inquisitor?” he threatened, his grip tightening on his staff.

“Dude, seriously: I should be the one asking you that question,” she remarked, showing off her marked hand. “Since this is definitely your fault.”

Her words made him step back in surprise. Spirit or demon, how did she know? 

“Spirit, where is she?” I coolly asked. “How have you come in possession of her body?”

Groaning, she shook her head in frustration. “Spirit? Yeah, I wish. If I were a spirit, it would have been far easier to track your other girlfriend. Who, by the way, may be in danger of getting damselled and fridged for your sake any time now...”

Fridged. Damselled. His other girlfriend. This entity in the Inquisitor’s body spoke words that had no meaning for him. The only thing he could really do was stare in surprise.

“Inquisitor, we found them!” a scout interrupted. “We found the mages you are looking for.. Bandits have them pinned down, and they seem to be barely holding on!”

“Finally!” At this, she grabbed her staff and turned to Solas. “Let’s go, Professor X! Time to save your girlfriend.”

“My girlf--” He stopped himself. No. He would not repeat such meaningless, unintelligent words.

The entire party followed the scout to a clearing. Traps everywhere. Bandits kept emerging from the stones by the dozens, overwhelming what looked like a travelling group of Circle enchanters half their size around a hill. The desperate enchanters erected what appeared to be a makeshift summoning circle. Their voices cried out to the heavens, repeating what sounded like a binding spell. At the center of this circle, to Solas’ disbelief, was Wisdom--struggling, twisting against invisible shackles.

No. How is she even here? Why is she here? And how did this Impostor know?

 _Mana, Ma halani_ , she pleaded. _Mana, Ma halani._

At her pleas, Solas knew that his questions stopped mattering.

The Inquisitor’s party needed no more encouragement to charge. Solas fought countless battles with them before. As soon as he cast a wide barrier on his companions, Cassandra and the rest of the warriors charged. The rest split up to outflank the rest of the bandits.

But even as the rest of the bandits were quickly being routed, the enchanters continued with their spell.

“The summoning circle!” Solas called to the Inquisitor or whoever she was. At that point, he stopped caring. She was his best chance at saving his Friend. “We break it, we have a chance of stopping the binding.”

“On it!” She gave him a nod. “Varric!”

Another marker of the Inquisitor’s change lied in how she fought, Or rather, how she barely did, only attacking when she herself was attacked, or summoning a lightning chain to clear herself a path towards a rift. The rest, she trusted her companions to do.

Her companions did not disappoint. They quickly routed the bandits and broke the summoning circle. By sunset, Cassandra managed to rout and arrest both the bandits and the enchanters for this illegal summoning.

Solas, after he was secure of his Friend’s safety, opened his mouth to thank the Inquisitor. But was interrupted by a dismissive wave of her marked hand.

Her mouth emitted a low grunt, before bellowing, “Dude! I did not do this for you, you self-centered asshole! I did this for her.” Her dark narrow eyes shifted towards Wisdom who rushed to thank the Inquisitor.

 _Ma serannas dalen_ , Wisdom repeated. _Ma serannas_.

“You’re very welcome.” The Inquisitor gave her a warm smile. “Listen, I can’t understand you that well but I know you understand me. And we girls need to stick together. If you’re grateful, would you please give a piece of your mind to your gaslighty friend over here.” She pointed to Solas beside her. “You probably know what he’s up to, and if you could be so kind as remind him of his stupidity and ka-gagohan, I would be most grateful.”

Suffice to say, the next hour until she disappeared into the Fade, Wisdom had words.

And for the first time in millenia, Solas had none.

* * *

**Glossary**

Putang Ina - In Filipino, this literally means "your Mom's a whore" but it's pretty much the equivalent of the word "fuck"

Ka-gagohan - stupidity or assholery. root word: gago - the equivalent for asshole


	2. Questions

“Let’s start over,” she began when she managed to get him alone at the back of the caravan headed back towards Skyhold. “My actual name is Sunshine Reyes. Up until a month ago, I was slaving my life away as a programmer in that studio-that-must-not-be-named for its notoriety in crunch hours. Long story short, I drank from a water bottle that my Mom brought as a present from her hometown. I fell asleep on my desk, and the next thing I knew, bam! I’m in this embodied amalgamation of white Anglo-American high fantasy tropes. Anyway, I assume you have questions?”

Solas hated it whenever someone stole the words right out of him. Usually, other people had questions for him not the other way around. And he really hated that.

They sat at the back of a cart filled with supplies while the rest of the party trodded on. The journey would take six days at least, so he might as well find a way to pass the time.

“Why are you in her body?” he asked, his gaze icily directed at her.

“Gosh, I don’t know,” she said with a casual shrug. “I don’t know why I had to get this body in particular. Growing up, I do know Mom wanted me to look a little whiter--those Ponds whitening creams, all those Hollywood cartoons and learning English--but this! Look!” Her fingers twirled a strand of her moonstone hair. “Even Mom wouldn’t want me to be this white!”

Fenedhis lasa.

Everything she kept fussing about felt superficial. “What do you have against looking as such? What is so wrong about looking--as you describe it--white?”

“Oh believe me, you don’t want me to get started on that rabbit hole! But if I were to think of a Thedas comparison, it would be like an elf taking the body of someone human. In that body, there are advantages to be sure…”

“And you desire none of these advantages?” His curiosity peaked at her claim.

“No,” was her firm answer. “I want to learn to respect myself.”

Curious. A semblance of Pride. Would it be enough to mirror his own?

“But this is why I need your help as you need mine,” she continued. “You can’t risk me spilling your secret. But you clearly can’t kill me either: I have the mark, and I am, after all, still your best chance at defeating Corypheus. You want your orb back and so do I. I think your orb may just be the thing to send me back.”

“The orb: how much do you know about it?”

“A little. I know you use those things as foci. I know you slept for hundreds of years and found yourself too weak to open it. So you gave it to Corypheus and that backfired marvelously well…”

“That pompous pretender should have died in the blast.” The calm in his voice masked the anger in his words.

“But he didn’t. Didn’t he?” Her eyes stared accusingly at him. “And you feel like you need to fix your mess, before you use the orb to tear open the Veil and kill everyone else.”

“And you…do not mind me doing that?”

“I do mind. But I also know that someone will definitely stop you. Certainly not me or Lavellan, but there will definitely be someone…”

At this point, her dark gaze was inescapable. It was as if he was on trial just with those dark eyes that may or may not be hers.

“And what makes you so certain?”

“Fate. The limits of the Frostbyte engine. Or grand narratives--as racist or sexist they often are. Take your pick. Such things would never let the likes of you win.”

His pride could not help but smile at the challenge. The way she sighed and bobbed her head it was clear that she understood that he was never going to give up. And he was definitely determined to prove her wrong.

His eyes studied the way her long nimble fingers--Lavellan’s fingers--pilfered an apple from a bushel beside her. After she took one large bite of it, he noticed droplets of apple’s liquid sliding down her throat. It went down and down until he could not see it anymore. She took another bite and the process repeated itself.

But enough distractions. He had one final question.

“How did you come to know all of this about my plans?”

At this, she stopped eating. For a moment he thought that she gave him a look that somewhat resembles pity. “Do you really want to know?”

“I would not be asking you this question otherwise.”

A pause, and another sigh. “It’s because...this is all a game.”

For the next few hours, she carefully explained to him about stories, video games, and how she believed herself to be in a video game that she once played--one where he ends up becoming the villain. Solas listened in disbelief as she repeated how she knew.

“Impossible!” his voice thundered. “If I were to believe those claims, it all means that all the torment...all the suffering that my People have been through--it was all for someone else’s cruel amusement!”

“I’m sorry…” For the first time, there was remorse in her voice.

“So you...do not believe me to be real?” There was a bit of a plea in his voice. He wanted--no. He needed to know that he was real.

She remorsefully shook her head. “No. Anymore than you believing that everyone else here is real.”

Her words cut deep. As they travelled, he thought more about it. He knew he was real. Otherwise, why did his people have to perish? Why did he carry the burden of his actions for countless millennia?

No: he was real. His world was real.

And he was determined to prove her wrong.

* * *

**Glossary**

Ponds Whitening Cream - whitening product. widely advertised in Philippine media


	3. Masks

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without Tita Sunshine’s balikbayan box!” said a little human girl in pigtails playing with bubble wrap.

Solas surmised that she was probably around age eight or nine in human years. The little girl, a middle-aged woman and an elderly woman all sat huddled around a large brown box filled with sweets, clothes, toys and many other items strange to him.

“Look Inay!” exclaimed the middle-aged woman. “She remembered to buy your Crocs. And my Sephora!”

“But where is my Lego?” queried the little girl. “Tita said she got me some last time over Skype.”

The middle-aged woman smiled. “I’m sure it’s down there under the chocolates.”

The old woman, however, remained pensive. “If my granddaughter has all this money, why does she not come here herself?”

“It’s that game company of hers,” answered the middle-aged woman. “They keep them working up there even this time of year. But she’ll be getting her Canadian passport soon. And she’s working on petitioning us. Maybe next year, we’ll be spending Christmas with her.”

“Will there be snow?” the little girl asked. “Please let there be snow!”

“Oh, there will be snow. Especially if you study hard enough and work on your English.”

“But English makes my nose bleed!”

The little girl prattled on until there was nothing left in the box to unpack. Afterwards, the trio proceeded to a table filled with food continuing their conversation about this place called “Canada” and this occasion they called “Christmas.”

Solas surmised that these three are her family as her dreams mostly consisted of them.

On another occasion, he followed the same family to a graveyard where they lay food and flowers on two tombstones that lay side by side. While the family remained silent on this occasion, shades of dreamers around them murmured. And he learned that the tombstones belonged to her father and her brother both killed in what was called a “driveby.”

The next occasion that this family was at their house, he observed how their walls were filled with their momentos--images of what he guessed were the two dead men, and little pieces proclaiming her little achievements--a little cutout that said “UP magna cum laude wins Varnier Scholarship” or a small gold-painted trophy with blurred printed words and an emblem of several spinning spheres.

All her dreams featured her family and their momentos. But in these dreams, she was never present.

Save one.

Once, he followed the sound of bells to a local stone Chantry cathedral. Except in this chantry, the officiators were robed men, similar to Tevinter, not women. Outside the Chantry, multicolored lights, banners and paper star lanterns strung all around gave the cold night a festive atmosphere. Throngs of people gathered around local vendors selling purple rice cakes, the smell of them hanging in the air. A man carried a pole with two metal buckets on each side calling out the word, “Taho!”

In the midst of the dizzying crowd, he spotted a red hooded figure looking up at the sky. He could not see her face, but he knew at an instant that it was her.

When he called, she retreated to the star-lit streets and disappeared.

If he was going to prove to her that his world was real, he needed to find her in the Fade. Yet he could hardly find her. And at the times that he did, she always disappeared before him.

She was not playing fair.

In the waking world, she played the part of the Inquisitor rather well. Her voice expertly mimicked Lavellan’s Dalish accent while speaking Common. She addressed each of her other companions’ concerns, sometimes even before they happened, or asked for help. Judgments and pronouncements happened swiftly with hardly any favor to any party or clan.

In the impostor’s shoes, Solas deemed that the Inquisitor gained something Lavellan lacked--objectivity. But then, who’s to say that our heroine may only be making some judgments just because she does not remember all the lore?

Minds are, after all, very fallible. Even Solas understands this.

Since that last conversation while travelling back from the Plains, she stopped avoiding him, and with his help, started learning Elvhen in her visits to the room at Skyhold that he made his own. 

Her skills at language learning were mediocre at best, however. 

“For the last time,” Solas repeated, masking the frustration in his voice as his grip tightened on the volume he was carrying. “It’s ‘Melana en athim las enaste…’”

“Melanin and eighthim--ugh! Putang Ina!” she shouted in exasperation. “Nuva iovro av na, i etun na sule ven, dalas manean’en!”

“Su an’banal i’ma!” The book he was holding finally gave way and dropped from Solas’ hands. “How are you so adept at repeating expletives and nothing else?!”

“Probably because there is someone present who I simply love repeating them to,” she replied, giving him a sly grin. “Fen’harel ver na!”

“Pala adahl’en!” Still, he found her taking his name in vain strangely endearing.

And beneath those cocky stares and petulant glances, he wanted to know what she really looked like beneath Lavellan’s skin where she resided.

What was wrong with him?

In the middle of one of these lessons, he interrupted her butchering of his sacred language to pose to her an observation. “Despite your initial complaints, you seem to have grown accustomed to wearing Lavellan as your mask.”

Her eyes rolled at his statement. “Says the ancient elf who hardly showers to keep up with the hobo apostate act!”

His arms crossed. Had she actually seen him without this particular persona? “Did you at least find what you saw a little more appealing?”

“Nuva mar’edhis banafelas i miol’en av ra!”

Ah, she did. Or at least he thought she did. 

“Still, being Inquisitor is the ultimate power fantasy,” she admitted. “After all, who doesn’t want to have the ability to change things for the better?”

“Some of us have, and look what happened…”

“Oh shush! This is not your pity party, Kylo Ren…” she interrupted, brandishing a finger. “I was making a point about fantasy. The fact of the matter is, this only what being Inquisitor is--a fantasy. I can change Thedas as much as I want, but it changes nothing for me in my world.”

“Even after all this, you still think none of this is real?”

“You don’t even know what reality is!”

“I understand a semblance of it,” he pressed. “When stories and fantasies are repeated often and long enough at times they become reality. I have seen it in the Fade. This is how I know I and my world exist.”

“But Solas--the hobo apostate--is a lie!”

“Yet I am also him,” he said firmly.

She studied him curiously for a moment, until she whispered exasperatedly, “Why does it always have to be about you?” Her mouth quivered before she closed her book, and got up towards the door.

A long pause. A moment of consideration, and finally a shifting of tactics. His voice called back almost in a whisper, “Then let it be about you.”

Her steps halted right under the door leading outside. On turning her face back, she gave him a rather curious expression that he could not decide whether it was disbelief, disdain or a little bit of both. 

“You speak much about respecting yourself,” he challenged, stepping towards her until he too was outside. “Yet you remove yourself from your dreams save one. How would you explain this contradiction?”

Her eyes met his, as if in answer to his challenge. “Everybody has contradictions.”

As she studied him with Lavellan’s large purple eyes and Mythal’s vallaslin underneath, he wondered what color her true eyes were. A stray lock fell to obscure his view for a bit. There was a bit of hesitation until he reached down and tucked it back on Lavellan’s ear.

“Isalan eolasa na,” he whispered. “I want to know the nature of  _ your _ contradictions.”

“Why?” her voice chimed with curiosity. 

“It’s not about why, but rather...who,” was his answer.

The feeling of something wet from above caught his clothes, her hair and her skin. Solas looked up and noted that it had just begun to snow. With the tiny flakes, a spark of memory floated down that both their hands seemed to catch.

A memory of someone neither here nor there.

The same red-hooded figure whose face evaded him lifting her hands to catch the white powdery matter that covered the trees, the dense buildings, people, and the little boxes that dashed on the road.

Her first snowfall.

And then another memory.

Tapping. Snow falling on a window in a sparsely furnished bedroom where one could barely take three steps in either direction. The red-hooded figure sitting in a corner waving to what appeared to be a small glowing box--a mirror perhaps? Only this mirror had three figures waving back: the little girl, the mother and her grandmother.

They too were trapped in a mirror that she could not cross.

Before he could touch her, the memory faded. Once more, the snow fell around them. And it was Lavellan’s deep purple eyes that stared back at him.

When will she ever let this mask fall?

Gingerly, he took her marked hand and gently placed it on his temple. He observed her eyes flicker as he shared old memories:

A city of crystal spires, floating palaces, roads of pearl and stone. The comforting arms of warm living wood while listening to two lecturers and a spirit debate about bending the material world. The taste of cake baked for two hundred years. The touch of The Mother. A birthing ceremony. A Wisdom spirit finding form. His.

She gasped and backed away at that last memory. “What was that?”

“Myself…” he replied softly. “Giving in for now...”

A sigh. A look of recognition on that borrowed face: they had both been away from home for too long.

Then for the first time, her lips wrinkled before turning into a full smile. The image would be forever burned in his memories: the first time she smiled at him.

A small thought came as the snow continued to fall on them: perhaps his reality and hers could meet somewhere in between.

* * *

**Glossary**

Balikbayan box – boxes shipped by sea. A typical feature of Filipino Christmas especially when one family member works abroad. It’s also one symbol of the Filipino diaspora. See: <https://www.worldremit.com/en/stories/story/2019/10/22/balikbayan-boxes>

Inay – Filipino word for “mother”

Taho – a silken tofu desert with brown sugar syrip served with sago and tapioca pearls. See: https://kitchenconfidante.com/homemade-taho-recipe

UP – University of the Philippines, the Philippines’ top ranked state university and is one of the most difficult to get into. Comparable to UC Berkley status-wise.

Elvhen

Fen’harel ver na! – Dread Wolf take you…

Isalan eolasa na – I want to know you

Melana en athim las enaste - Now let humility grant favor.

Nuva iovro av na, i etun na sule ven, dalas manean’en! – May the bear eat you, shit you into the river and kill the fish

Nuva mar’edhis banafelas i miol’en av ra! – May your dick rot and the insects eat it.

Pala adahl’en! – Go fuck a forest!

Su an’banal i’ma! – To the void with you!


	4. Noche Buena

The humans had this tradition called Satinalia. It was similar to this tradition in her world called “Christmas” or “Pasko.” 

Solas convinced her to introduce some of the traditions she knew from her world for said holiday. After some discussion, she agreed to the idea.

By the Eve of Satinalia, the star lanterns in her dream hung around every corner of Skyhold. Mother Giselle sang a chant about the birth of Andraste, to which everyone present sung along before leaving peacefully towards different houses. Every house, every door in Skyhold was open to anyone who wanted to share a feast on their tables, including those purple rice cakes in her dream. 

In Skyhold, family feasts were decreed to know no race, gender, class or affiliation. 

And there was dancing in the courtyard. But as the evening’s feasting continued, Solas noticed her merely observing the scene at a distance on the same platform where Lavellan was declared as Inquisitor.

“You did this,” Solas pointed out after taking a step beside her. “Shouldn’t you at least join them?”

After all, what is the point of all this if she would keep to herself?

“It’s not quite the same,” she muttered whimsically looking up towards the star lanterns. “But at least there are stars.”

Before he could even think of a reply, she caught his hand and dragged him towards the feasting.

“Oh c’mon, you didn’t think I would ever do this without you, Mr. Scrooge?” she teased, pulling them towards the line dancers.

It was usually him who did the hand grabbing, but thuast...this is her day after all. After they had danced, visited enough houses, eaten their food, drunk their wine, she led him to her up her room above the hall and the war rooms, which were also decorated with those star lanterns.

“And finally, your present!” She declared handing him a red wrapped box. “Merry Christ--I mean--Feastday!”

In his pockets, Solas carried a little box of his own. “I suppose this is the appropriate occasion for such exchanges. But it is also high time that I reward your insolence.”

He was met with a slightly crooked eyebrow when she took it from his hand. The box was not exactly wrapped, and he had no thought of embellishing it beyond its purpose. At the box’s opening, the brow lifted further upwards as she eyes the amulet inside.

“Given your lack of prowess in battle,” he explained, trying to be as tactful as possible. “I suppose it is only fitting that I give you something that will allow me to protect you better…”

She chuckled. “Relax. I know I suck. Also, I never thought of you as that person who gives socks at Christmas.”

“It’s not a sock.”

“It’s the magical equivalent of a sock,” she argued. “But still, thank you.”

She wore it on her neck without hesitation regardless.

It was his turn to be surprised when he opened up his present. The object looked like a green knitted shirt with a really long collar. He shifted it upwards and downwards to ascertain what and how this garment is worn. “What nature of attire is this?”

“It’s a turtleneck, silly!” she said with glee. “I spent the last month knitting it. I hope you realize how hard it was to keep this from you at camp!”

So that was why she spent hours at a time in her tent.

He gave in to her insistence that he try it on in her changing room. While it was easy to slip into, the neck was a bit of a problem--until he found out that it was meant to be folded to its proper side. Examining himself in the mirror, he thought about this looking similar to something he saw some people in her world wore, and how he did not at all mind looking as such.

Now he was part of her world as much as she was somehow part of his own, though he had yet to see her face.

After he stepped out, he noticed her wearing a similar garment, only red. She carried mugs on her hand, and the room smelled of Antivan chocolate.

“And now for your other present!” she pronounced as he took a seat on the sofa with his mug of chocolate.

In the next couple of hours, she performed for him a retelling of a novel she called _Noli Me Tangere_ , which she described as “the saddest Christmas story in existence.”

Based on what he could decipher, the tale was of a young man, a scholar, who returned to his hometown after studying for years at a place called “Europe” to build a school and to marry his childhood sweetheart. But all this efforts seemed to be thwarted by what she calls “friars”--who she curiously depicted using Antivan accents. One friar is discovered to have killed the scholar’s father and his remains dumped in a river. Another plotted a conspiracy to accuse the scholar of forming a rebellion out of his lust for the scholar’s fiance. Things take a turn for the worst when it is discovered that his fiance is the bastard daughter of the friar who killed his father. The story too had other notable characters--two boys working as bell ringers for the friars who disappeared, their mother who goes mad at their disappearance, and a young rebel who saves the scholar’s life numerous times, including after the scholar is imprisoned after being framed for rebellion. The tale ends on Feastday, the scholar manages to escape but only at the cost of the rebel sacrificing his life. As the rebel bled from his wounds, he found one of the bellringer boys weeping at the body of his dead mother. The rebel petitions the boy to find build a funeral pyre for him and his mother, and to find gold that he buried in the forest, so the boy could study and build a life for himself after all his misfortune.

By the end of her retelling, she dramatically lay on the carpet repeating the rebel’s last words. 

“I die...without seeing the dawn brighten over my native land!” she croaked, unskillfully attempting to mimic a dying man’s breath. “You, who have it to see, welcome it—and forget not those who have fallen during the night!”

Solas suppressed a giggle as she histrionically turned her head, and stuck out her tongue like she did whenever a character expired in the story. Nonetheless, he gave her a light applause as fitting for such efforts before peppering her with questions.

“But what happened to the other boy?” he asked.

“I think it is pretty apparent that one of the friars beat him to death offstage…”

“The fiance?”

“She became a sister in the local chantry.”

He thundered, “But that puts her in the path of the friar lusting after her!”

“Yeah I didn’t like that part of the story either,” she admitted, taking a gulp of her now cold chocolate. “But women around that time did not have much of the choice. It was marriage, the convent or death. Maria Clara chose to remain faithful to her beloved, but in doing so, dooms herself. Come to think of it, her fate in the sequel is so much worse…”

“The sequel?” he asked, trying not to sound too excited. “You mean there is more to this story?”

“A much larger cast, more corruption and more suffering. After all, this is the story that got its author executed, thus inciting a lot of my ancestors to rebellion and revolution…”

A rebellion? He just needed to know more. “Was it a successful rebellion at least?”

“Partly. They managed to drive off one colonizer, but attracted another. And another. In this case, America and Japan. This partially explains why I can speak Common--which is English in my world.”

“Were you a slave in your world?” That would not do. Otherwise, mounting a rebellion in her name would be a slight inconvenience, but not altogether impossible.

She bit her lip before answering. “Not in the sense that you know slaves. But capitalism, the lack of money, an uncertain immigration status and need can easily drive a person to conditions similar to slavery. No marks, just invisible shackles...”

“And when do you plan to tell me the rest of the story?” he queried.

“Perhaps next year.”

Next year, if they remain the same.

Unbeknownst to our heroine, the enchantment on her amulet had taken its full effect. Her ears shrunk to human shaped ears. Her hair darkened to deep black waves. Lavellan’s ivory skin faded towards a tawny earthy brown tone. Her face revealed lips moist from the chocolate she was drinking, a small efficient nose, perpetually arched brows that would most likely never run out of questions, and the thoughtful depth on those keen dark eyes. Solas let out a sigh of relief when he noticed that she bore no vallaslin.

“What?” she asked with a shrug. “Do I have something on my face?”

“No…” he muttered breathlessly. “That is why you are perfect, ina'lan'ehn.”

An eye roll, this time with her bright eyes. “Trust me, perfect is not the best adjective to use.”

“I beg to differ…”

His fingers brushed her cheek. She made no effort to move away. Instead, she tilted her face so her cheek and her chin rested on his hand. Taking this as encouragement, he leaned and brushed his lips towards hers, pulling away quickly to gauge her reaction.

A gasp of surprise, a blink before a playful expression danced on her immaculate face.

“Vhenan, I--”

She never allowed him to finish that sentence. Her fingers tug at his collar, pulling him towards her into a hungry kiss. To this, he responded by weaving his arms around her, dipping her into the sofa, and meeting her greed with his own.

But then he felt her grip tighten on his collar. She pulled away and put a stop to any further kissing. 

“Wait!” 

That was his turn to blink. “What?”

“This isn’t right,” she pointed out. “You’re kissing Lavellan!”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are!”

“No,” he said firmly, enunciating every word. “I am not.”

Her eyes widened at the realization. Her arms pushed him off her, and dashed off towards the mirror. He rolled downwards on the floor with a grunt.

“What have you done?!” she cried.

“An enchantment,” he answered, getting up from the floor with a low grunt. “Via the amulet. It allows me to find you, and to see you for who you are. My agents have it. I thought it only fitting since you are also under my protection.”

Her hands wrenched the amulet off her neck, violently tossing it to the floor. The spell faded before his eyes. Once more, it was Lavellan staring daggers at him.

“I am not your agent!” she hissed. “You: with your talk of freeing slaves. Yet you bind your people with this? How could you?!”

“It’s not meant to bind you,” he argued. “It’s meant to protect you.”

“Then why did you have to deceive me for it?!” she cried. “I almost believed your bullshit. Lintik! I actually wanted to believe your bullshit…”

“Vhenan, I’m sorry,” he pleaded, moving towards her. “I only wanted--”

Her punch landed squarely on his jaw throwing him backwards. He knew he deserved it. 

“Get out!” she shouted. “Why must you ruin everything? I almost...we almost…Putang Ina!”

“Vhenan…”

“Out!”

He stopped arguing. As he made his way towards the door, he swore that he heard her whisper, “I’m such an idiot! Just like last year!” 

* * *

**Glossary**

Ina'lan'ehn - beautiful

Lintik - Literally "lightning" but in this case, it's "fuck!"

Noche Buena - Christmas Eve celebration.

Thuast - Whatever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credits to @paraparadigm for putting the permanently giving me the mental image of Solas in a turtleneck.


	5. True Lies

The Modern world had its own taste of pageantry. The grand ballroom was simply one example of it. Its figures of golden suns and lions lit by thousands upon thousands of candles. Tables of hams, hors d’oeuvre and cakes bathed in the same golden hues. Dozens of elven servants scurried about pouring wine on goblets larger than bowls. 

And the dancing.

The older humans had a tendency to stiffly circle around and twirl the younger players of the game. Some ladies torturously stuck to preordained steps while fashionably clinging to the hope that someday they would be able to at least call for the right music.

Sure, there were murderous plots that night, ending in grand speeches. All the actors stuck to their scripts.

Politics is mere theatre. Only the costumes change. 

Solas had a taste for it in ages past, but today he was content to sip his glass and enjoy the spectacle. Invisibility too had its advantages, such as being able to secure all that he needed within the first hour. 

Unbeknownst to the world, he managed to regain all the eluvians, while the new player in her introductory role as Inquisitor danced and scurried about. This new player reconciled all three warring factions, and ended with a passionate speech about unity.

The best actors and players grow into their roles. This one grew into Lavellan’s role marvelously.

Yet, when she pageantry was over, she melancholily gazed out into the empty dark sky from a quiet balcony away from all the dancers. The past months, she ignored him, spoke one or two words to him when needed, and found reasons to exit the room whenever he was present. This time, though, she did not mind his presence standing alongside her.

“Did you get what you needed tonight?” she asked stoically. “The eluvians, I mean…”

Ah, of course, she knew about that too.

He answered with a nod. “If you knew, I am surprised that you made no attempt to stop me.”

“Someday, someone will,” she reassured him. “Today, I am just tired.”

Inside the ballroom, the music stopped. Someone made a toast to the Inquisition and Inquisitor Lavellan. To this, she never even turned. Instead, she wore a sad smile and bowed her head low.

Once the music started again, they stood in pensive silence.

“I missed you,” she whispered, breaking the silence. “You are still the worst thing that ever crawled on this world. I still hope that a meteor crashes down on you and that your bones get misidentified in a goddamn museum a thousand years from now...Yet in this world, you are the only being in existence who knows who I am, and thinks of me from time to time.”

“Vhenan, I’m sorry,” he finally said, almost fully expecting a rebuttal.

“I know,” she said quickly. 

No rebuttal, no hesitation.

Her fingers brushed against his. A hesitation, before his own captured hers. She squeezed right back.

“Dance with me?” he asked.

A playful smile danced on her lips. One that he missed. “No, I have a better idea…”

She arranged to meet him in the Fade, explicitly telling him to use a space from her memories. 

The snow fell heavily that day. Her dreams, equidistantly spaced houses and well lined streets had other humans shovelling around. The roads had these little boxes that ran on the streets. Red, green, yellow and white lights determined the rhythms of these boxes and the people crossing. Not everyone followed the rhythm though. And there were some individuals he passed that had a musky odor while they breathed. He ended up coughing profusely when one of these individuals breathed on his face.

“Weed,” she told him. “It’s like lyrium here. Sort of. Gets you high. And it’s legal here.”

She wore the same red hooded garment with a thick red coat made of material that he could not decipher. Under that hood, she made no attempts to mask her face--the face that he saw that evening when she threw him out. This time, he had more time to examine it closely.

Still no vallaslin.

On closer examination, he noticed that a small scar right above that left brow that arched a lot with her questions. She had two deep dimples whenever she smiled. When the wind blew off her hood, he observed a reddish almost heart shaped birthmark a few notches below where her right ear and the end of her cheek met.

He resisted the urge to run his fingers above that mark and capture her face under his.

Right there, she was real. Too real for him.

“Oh, stop it!” she protested, rolling her eyes.

“Stop what, exactly?” he bit his lip, masking his guilt.

“Stop looking at me like you just met Pia Wurtzbach. This face is not winning any beauty contests.”

“No, but it has its side benefits,” he argued, half smiling. There were details he rather would keep to himself.

They came upon a large red brick building that ran several storeys high with a lot of windows. It had doors made of glass that she turned with keys. Solas made his way towards the stairs when she pulled him right into a tight metal box right beside the staircase which closed on them.

Several buttons lined on one side marked with numbers. When she pressed the number five, the ground jerked up quickly, almost throwing him off balance. He ended up leaning on her for support to which he uttered a soft apology, before she laced her hands on his.

He could get used to this.

The ground jolted to a halt, and they stepped out on another floor with a long hallway with several black doors. They stopped at one marked 505.

“Now, behind these doors are my roommates and their other friends,” she explained matter-of-factly. “They’ll be a lot of food today since we are going to something like a late Christmas celebration. If they ask questions, just say we are friends at work and you just came from comic-con…”

“Comi--pardon?” he repeated confusedly.

The door opened to reveal a homey middle-aged woman who ushered them in. It led to a packed wide room with a large table on one side filled with fried food, some chairs, a large sofa on the other end of the room facing a large lightbox that spoke. There were at least a dozen people in that room. With not enough chairs to sit on, people ate standing up, happily chatting together.

People did ask him questions which she helped answer for him. Though they seemed to believe her, they gave some suggestive looks. Nonetheless, questions went both ways. Solas managed to turn this to his advantage and glean some answers about her companions, memory shades that they were. The two who she shared this lodging with--two women who shared one room worked at a place called an “assembly line,” and the middle-aged woman had a job caring for elderly people.

“Ate Sunshine,” interrupted one boy pointing at Solas. “Is your boyfriend cosplaying your video game boyf--”

A large eggroll that she inserted on the boy’s mouth interrupted that sentence. She quickly dragged Solas towards the sofa and the lightbox, muttering something about how it would be pointless to reply to questions from these shades of her friends and their children.

From a small compartment below the light box, she grabbed two cone shaped metal objects that had mesh malls on top. She handed him a small one, while she carried the heavier one that had a small panel on one side. With the press of one button, the lightbox stopped speaking. It displayed the words, “Magic Sing” before it played some music with some words on the very large dark mirror before them, which he surmised he was meant to follow and sing along with.

“Now for your penance!” A playfully menacing grin danced on her lips. “We are warming up with Bonnie Tyler…”

Words appeared on the mirror with the strangest of images behind them that did not match the words at all. Though the only refrain that Solas had to sing for this one was “Turn around…”, the images caused him to miss the cues much to her chagrin.

Soon though, Solas learned to ignore the images, and got into the rhythm of repeating the words projected onto the mirror. He obliged her by singing with her about some “Thieves in the Temple,” a joyful melody about a place called “YMCA,” a strange nonsensical rhyme that involved growling about “Who Let the Dogs Out?” and another song about being “Hungry like the Wolf”--though the reference annoyed him a bit at first, he learned to sing it in jest. Then there was a ballad about a “Piano Man,” and a “Bohemian Rhapsody” that never seemed to end. Finally, there was one melancholy refrain about getting someone “Alone,” which somehow had an earnest ring to how they sang it to each other.

Watching her sing though, what she lacked in talent, she made up with charisma.

Admittedly, he quite enjoyed the practice of screaming one’s lungs off into a strange metal device. As the practice involved some or a lot of drinking, one always had the excuse to blame emotions on intoxication. 

Her song selections somehow had the brutal honesty of intoxication. For instance, she sang all about a “Bad Romance,” about “making a deal with the Bad Wolf…” or about him being “So Vain.” 

And he too had this excuse.

He settled upon a Dalish lullaby, one that they called “Mir Da'len Somniar” which he sang as a promise. If she could follow his voice in this dark world they found themselves into, maybe both of them may find home. It was a lullaby but he sang it as something else.

The way she fixedly stared at him, it felt apparent she understood enough.

By the end of his song, she rushed and threw her arms around him in a tight embrace. His arms froze a bit and hung stiffly, before softly reciprocating. She tearfully whispered, “Thank you, Kaibigan.”

But because this is the Fade, intoxication does not exactly apply. There is really no such thing as intoxication in the Fade.

Everything was a lie, but it was also real.

Doubts in his world aside, she was real.

And she called him Kaibigan. It meant Friend in her native tongue. But perhaps that meant something more. After all, the word for love her language “ibig” was the root word, or so it is attested in the libraries of this city in her memories. The time they had, she allowed him to explore her world.

And speaking of libraries, the libraries in her world were vast. He found out what those little light boxes did. Some of them contained knowledge stored somewhere in the air. While on the surface it seems like a world without magic, there are other things miraculous about it.

In her world, food was always so easy to acquire. There were establishments where one just walks in, selects one of the images on a light box and taps a little card at the end. Larger amounts of food were almost readily available in these massive storehouses. One simply has to grab a metal cart, fill it, politely smile at the person on the counter and tap one small shiny card on one glowing box. 

Because of that little card, they did manage to get cakes of several varieties that he could all try forever. There was one that he particularly liked that they called “Red Velvet”--a pastry that contained no hint of any article of clothing save its frilly texture and frothy excess.

Hours of the day were extended by light that came in various shapes and colors. One could easily spend all evening reading and not sleep at all.

Cities were massive, yet one has several ways to get around them. He had seen the moving metal boxes on the streets. Another way was via one she called the Metro--where one has to take several steps underground and ride those long metal containers in wheels to one’s destination. 

The best one, of course, was the airplane or that form of transportation that allowed several passengers to go up in the air and travel thousands of miles. While Solas did not like the idea of being cramped and literally tied to one’s seat, or the ringing in his ears as soon as he felt the carriage they were on was not touching the ground anymore, he soon forgot about it after he looked out the window and spied the clouds.

There was some discomfort, to be sure, but Solas forgot all about it, as soon as polite ladies handed them trays of food. His companion shared a small earpiece with him, and he got to watch a play on a little light box before them while softly holding her hand.

He had long forgotten or cared what the play was about as he was lost in his own thoughts while doing so.

What would it be like to dream in her world? He wondered. How long would he be able to walk in this world with her? To the latter question, he knew millenia and infinite lifetimes may not be enough.

He had time. In time, perhaps both their worlds may meet.

There was one thing that he found quite distracting in her dreams though. In different times, he often heard a certain ringing sound that he soon discovered came from a smaller version of those mirrors and lightboxes that seemed ubiquitous in this world. Whenever one picks them up, two round shapes always appear--green or red. Two customs apply to these ringing devices. If one simply selects red, one simply has to toss it back in one’s bag or pocket. Otherwise, if one chooses green, one has to press it to one’s ear to listen, and often say a greeting. The most common of those was often “Hello.” 

She always picked red. Often the ringing went away. But not soon after, it rang again and she chose to ignore it. And she told him too to pay the device no attention.

At first he heeded her. But the longer time he spent with her, the more he found it quite distracting.

Finally, once as she was busy acquiring them food from one of those establishments where one is simply handed hot drinks and cake, he heard the ringing again. He quickly found the small device in her bag. 

She noticed too late what he was about to do. Her mad dash to him, and the word “No!” came too late.

As soon as Solas pressed the green circle, he heard a woman’s voice coming from it.

“Hello Iha,” the voice on the device started with some hesitation. “This is your Tita Daly. I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this, but they’re gone!”

“What do you mean gone?” Solas asked.

“They’re gone!” the voice repeated. “Your Mother. Your Lola. And Little Diwa. The entire barangay! All swept away by the typhoon. They’re all gone!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to @BECandCall , @itzteegan and @Lalaen for song suggestions in the karaoke section. While I had to heavily cut this to fit the word count and while I was not able to use everything, it all helped.
> 
> Also, Happy Holidays everyone!


	6. Wide Awake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Family Death, Grief, Disaster Scene

It is not always easy waking in a different world after sleeping for millennia.

Everything in this world felt wrong. Nothing responded to his will. Nothing seemed to fit correctly.

This was a world Solas tried to save. Yet, nothing of what he knew remained. The descendants of all he wanted to redeem thought him the architect of their doom and cursed with his name.

No: this is all wrong.

None of it was real.

Humans indeed have the strangest notions of immortality, with their stories of their Maker and his wife ascending to his side in power and living forever.

But that is not what immortality is.

Truth is, immortality never feels like that. Immortality is losing everyone else while living on. But to live on, there are certain lies that one has to tell one’s self to at least find meaning to everyone dying. Sometimes, lies and stories help curb fear and unspeakable sorrow.

After all, nothing is worse than dying alone.

Thus, Solas resolved to wake up from this Nightmare even if this means that this new world must end.

That was how he reconciled himself to the death of his own world.

The memories of her world were never the same since that ringing eluvian.

The snowy world in her dream, even still with its many lights, mirrors and knowledge felt a lot colder. The lights that made days last longer only became burdensome as they only extended the amount of hours when she worked.

And in this dream, it seemed that all she ever did was work.

He saw where she worked--a floor with an endless array of desks and multiple mirrors that contained numbers and a language he could never understand. Her own desk had two mirrors--one containing a list of endless amounts of tasks, and the other tilted to the side containing that strange language they called “the Code.” It had numerous empty bottles of those drinks he hated called energy drinks and coffee. 

Whenever she was not working, he found her shade in her solitary room playing a game--a story--that is all too familiar and strange to him: one that retold the conquests and victories of Lavellan and the Inquisition--even those they had not yet done. Noticeably, she was playing as Lavellan. Through these memories in the Fade, he knew what he would do--he would betray Lavellan, take her vallaslin, break her heart, and destroy the waking world.

So this was what she knew of him. The world that brought her comfort--real or not--he would come to destroy it too.

A picture frame by her bed was planted facedown. When he picked it up, he discovered that it contained a portrait of those three in her family who had died--her mother, her grandmother and her niece--all smiling and frozen in time.

Her hometown was also never the same.

All the buildings he saw where paper stars hung were all reduced to piles of debris, rubble and fallen trees that stretched for miles. Even the stone chantry that seemed to have withstood time was reduced to its bare foundations. Decomposing human bodies--young and old--all lined the streets. Everything smelt of saltwater and death.

All the stars were gone, even those that lit the sky.

Finally, he found her on a field emotionlessly staring at the endless array of unnamed white crosses planted on the hollow ground.

“People say that they’re buried here,” she said mournfully. “I walked for hours and I still cannot find them. You can help me find them, can’t you?”

Despite the gentle plea of her voice, he could only reply honestly. “I’m sorry, Vhenan.”

She gave him a bitter smile. “See? It’s just as I thought. Your world changes nothing for me. Nothing will ever bring them back.”

He followed her through the now empty roads towards the ruins of her home. The walls where the family portraits and certificates were now all gone. All that remained were the dirtied tiles of this floor’s home and a gray food closet that miraculously survived with its paint flaking off.

Within the rubble, she found a brush and a paint can. Dipping the brush into the metal container, she walked towards the floor that remained of her house, and painted a black moon almost the size of a bed. The paint dried quickly. She placed the brush down and lay over the moon exhausted and in fetal position.

Solas wordlessly took the brush beside her. He painted little black stars and a large sun around her, before taking her hand and lying down beside her as she wept on his shirt. Her sobs were muffled by a distant communications device that crooned:

_I’ll be home for Christmas,_

_If only in my dreams..._

In the waking world, she continued to silently mourn. Though her other companions continually bantered and joked, she merely replied with a nod and a sad smile. Her companions blamed him for it, thinking that she was sullen because of him.

Perhaps they will never find the true reason for her infinite sadness.

Solas stared at the blank walls of his room. He initially reserved these walls for murals that retold Lavellan’s exploits. But he knew that his friend is not Lavellan.

Thus, he took out his brush and started painting the joyful scenes that he witnessed in her dreams--the little town with its people endlessly haggling, its chantry, and its multicolored stars. In one corner, he painted a little house. Within this house, he painted three figures surrounding a large box--a little girl, a middle-aged woman and an old woman. Her family.

He noticed a little creak below him while painting this little scene. Looking down, he caught her eye as she examined the three figures. With this, she gave him a sad smile.

Without a word being spoken, she also took some paint, a brush, and a small palette. Behind him, she started drawing something on the other side of the room.

For hours that extended to days, they continued painting their respective parts of the wall. He said nothing to her even in those times, she paused to sob for a minute or two.

When both of them finally finished, he noticed what she had been painting all this time: a floating palace, a city of crystal glass spires, roads lit by precious stones, parks lush with forest-life, elves and spirits debating under tree-bows.

Images of his world.

No tears came even as he tightly squeezed her hand. He had not shed a tear for millenia, so he would not cry today.

Not now, not ever.

He let out a gasp as he spun around examining all the scenes around them: his world and her world captured in one space.

And then he knew.

The Nightmare that is this world changed into a Dream, because in this Dream, his world met hers.

For the first time in millenia, he was home.

Perhaps he did not have to die alone.

One day, he led her to a cave at Crestwood where she once had Varric, The Iron Bull, Sera and Dorian kill a wyvern that was terrorizing the village.

“Wow,” she gasped, spreading her arms up into the air. “You weren’t kidding when you mentioned the Veil is thin here. The Veil feels tingly?”

He let out a short laugh. At last, she was regaining a little bit of the liveliness that he remembered.

What she said was true. In that little cave, there was no need for magic for him to see her true face. That face without Lavellan’s vallaslin. Though she still wore Lavellan’s clothes, he appreciated how shorter she was by a few inches to Lavellan even if he sometimes had to glance down a bit to meet her at eye level.

“Seriously, why dump someone here?” she remarked. “But then again, I suppose it’s better that you did it in person rather than breaking up with someone via text. An ex did that to me once. That bitch--”

“What is the proper way to do it then, in your world?”

A shrug. “I dunno. But break up rules should be universal. It is best to do it in person. Preferably somewhere not public. Maybe their place so one could make a quick dash after. So that rules out Skyhold since you and Lavellan live there…”

“All of this remains in the hypothetical,” Solas posited. “Since you are here instead of Lavellan, I suppose it will never happen.”

“I suppose it won’t! But then, what memories would the Fade contain of this place then?”

“Beautiful ones…” He smiled at the thought.

“Oh?” Her brow arched playfully. “What kind?”

He closed his eyes for a moment and let out a deep breath. Because he needed to ensure that she would hear every word that he would say next.

“One that tells of an elven god asking his beloved to stay by his side for always--”

Her laughter interrupted him, and his heart sank.

“Wow. The stories, the lies you just tell...sometimes you can just say the best bullsh--”

“Would you rather that it were not real then?” he remarked remorsefully.

The playfulness of her expression dissolved to one of pity when she realized what he was trying to say. “Solas, I am so sorry...”

This time, her apologies would not suffice. Perhaps if he explains things better, she would see reason. “Don’t you see, Vhenan? Here, our worlds can be made real again. Things can be remade as they were. Both your world and mine. You will be able to see your family again--”

“But they would not be real!” she cried.

He let out a frustrated sigh. “So even after all this time, you still think none of this is real?”

Gently, she took his hand and squeezed it. “All this time, I never expected to find a friend like you. For all this is worth, I want you to know that I wanted you to be real. Arrogant egg bastard you may be. But it is time for me to wake up and grow up. And as sad as it would feel, bid farewell to my imaginary friends.”

“Vhenan, I am real.” He said those with a plea in his voice.

She sadly shook her head. “It doesn’t matter much now does it?”

It did to him.

“You know before all this I had dreams?” she muttered sorrowfully. “I dreamt that I would someday fight fascism. But fighting fascism does not pay the bills or get visas. So I gave it all up. And look at what I just helped do here: I installed two despotic leaders in Orlais and had someone else drink from the Well--effectively binding her to another Ancient Elf. And now there’s you. I am so sick of this lie that I am living! This is not a dream or a power fantasy. It's a Nightmare! I want to find myself again.”

But he too wanted his People free. He wanted her free. At this point, she was simply becoming unreasonable. He would have led any rebellion with her. “You truly have no idea of what I want?”

“Perhaps I never will. But I loved my family. I gave up my dreams for them. Now they are gone, perhaps it is time for me to find those dreams again. Maybe that is how I can move forward…”

“You do not have to move forward alone. I am here.” He knew he was losing this argument, but he still pressed his suit. He never loses arguments. Not now, not here.

“Maybe in another world, I would have even loved you.”

“Why not this one?” he pleaded.

She stood on tiptoes and pressed a slow kiss on his forehead. “Goodbye Kaibigan. And I’m sorry.”

Those were the last words she ever said to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: You are probably wondering what kind of typhoon is being referred to. Though I do not refer to it, the typhoon mentioned is based on Typhoon Haiyan or Yolanda that hit the Philippines several years ago, and obliterated several towns in Central Philippines with its strong winds and storm surges. If you're curious, here's one documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BnahLG_DmQ


	7. The Ones That Got Away

Lavellan squinted a lot upon returning to Thedas.

The world she lived in for several months was lit with so many bright lights, so adjusting to how dim everything was again was a bit of a challenge.

In that other world, she woke up in the body of a girl pronounced dead. People in that world said she died of overwork. The girl’s body was just being pulled into the morgue when she woke up to the surprise of the mortician.

It was a miracle, so people said. But Lavellan knew better. It was magic.

Thus, for months, she lived in this girl’s body who she learned worked in a game company that worked its employees to death because of something called “crunch.” Recently, this girl also lost her family. A typhoon’s storm surge, as people described.

Like her, this girl lost her Clan too.

The girl’s overlords gave her a week to recover before being summoned. Coming to the place where this girl worked, Lavellan realized another thing about this girl and many of her friends.

Like many of her people, these people were being enslaved.

So she found a way to help them find their freedom by organizing what was known in this world as a “general strike.”

It wasn’t hard. She only had to retell this dead girl’s story and people rallied around her. One day, this girl’s friends simply decided to do a walk out.

Lavellan was drafting what these people called a “Collective Agreement” when she was pulled back to her own body in Thedas.

A shame. If it were up to her, she would have seen the end of this strike through.

Via the dead girl’s world, she also found out everything that was going to happen in her world. She also learned how her companion Solas is actually the Dread Wolf, and will most likely betray her in the end.

The first thing Lavellan did upon landing back in her own body was walk up to the bald elf. She threw the strongest punch she could on his face, before locking him up in Skyhold’s dungeons.

In the colloquial of the dead girl’s world, Fuck this asshole very very much!

To think that she thought herself once attracted to this pompous insolent halla humper!

Slowly, she learned that in her body, the dead girl managed to keep the Inquisition together. Perhaps this girl chose some things differently than she would have chosen. For instance, she would have wanted Briala topping down the racial hierarchy of Orlais, but that could be amended another time. 

She learned the rest from Varric. “It took us all a while to figure out she wasn’t you, Snapdragon. Eventually we all did, but we didn’t want her to feel weird around us knowing she did it all for you. Buttercup loved her most of all, and Chuckles looks devastated. Because now she’s gone…”

Skyhold’s dungeons were always well guarded. But knowing that Solas had spies in the Inquisition, it made Lavellan wonder why he had not escaped yet. The celebrations on the main hall still echoed. The balladeers sang of how she and her companions defeated Corypheus and destroyed his orb. If only most of the world knew whose orb it really was.

Lavellan watched a lot of movies on Earth. She enjoyed one called _Princess Bride_ , and one particular action film with Liam Neeson. Heading down the steps, she repeated the actor’s lines. Something about having a specific set of skills. “I will find you...and I will kill you!” Fenedhis, she could never get the tone quite right.

But seeing him forlorn in his cell lying down on the ground and staring up the stone ceiling as if he hadn’t moved for days. It would be as useless as kicking a dead halla.

Perhaps sensing her presence, he asked, still unmoving. “So is it done then? You’ve defeated Corypheus?”

“Yes.” But he did not need to ask that. He probably already knew. What was his game?

“And the orb?”

“Destroyed.”

“It is as it is supposed to be then, just like she said was going to happen…”

But that was another story in another world. Both of them knew that their stories now would never be the same. 

“I have summoned the executioner for you tomorrow,” she told him matter-of-factly. “But I am guessing you will be long gone by then.”

He seemed to ignore that statement. “I wandered the Fade looking for her. And all the memories she left. But those shades are not her anymore. She’s simply gone. I will never find her in this world again…”

“Maybe it is for the best.” 

Coming down to his cell, Lavellan thought of so many lines from Earth’s movies to repeat to him, to threaten him. But at that moment, she found her own words. “Listen you dung-eating Fade megalomaniac, you caused enough deaths and bullshit in this world. But it is because of her that I was able to live a life that was never determined by you or your actions, you selfish egotistical bastard! You deserve everything that has befallen you and so much more.”

Still, he ignored her statements. “Do you think she will ever believe me to be real?”

Lavellan raised her arms in frustration. This is pointless. She left the dungeon annoyed.

Fine. If he simply wants to die tomorrow, it would be easier for everybody. But if he escapes, she would enjoy that so much. Because with that, she could actually be Liam Neeson. But her mind shifted to another movie. 

And that movie is called _Predator_.

* * *

Mythal expected her Old Friend to come, take her power and betray her. This way, he would accomplish the vengeance she always wanted. The first part of that came true. When he did come, he lamented about losing the orb and someone else. This other person escaped to another world, and he was going to use what remains of his power to cross the universe to find this other world she escaped to. To find her.

First there was her foolish daughter Morrigan losing her head to that boy who she calls her son. And now this.

Sentiment was the reason why she was betrayed over and over again. First Mythal, then Flemeth and now her Old Friend. It is a disease that kills plots hatched for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Not him too.

“It is all an illusion, Old Friend,” she tried to reason with him. “You may think that it is love, but it is what will bring you to ruin.”

Her Old Friend gave her a shrug as he shifted the angle of that large mirror. “Who said anything about love? I simply need her to believe that I am real.” 

The horns on her head shook along with her head in frustration.

And this is what happened to the Prideful Wisdom spirit she called a time ago. 

Whatever. It is what it is. It is not like she did not have alternative plans in case things go awry.

In one way or another, she will still have her revenge.

For now, if her Old Friend desires to bring himself to ruin, might as well let him see through it. After all, he did destroy a World for her. She did owe him this much.

The mirror’s hue changed from deep blue to light blue to a set of neon colors that shifted according to a certain rhythm. Were those the colors of this other world?

“You do not even know if that is her world,” Mythal pointed out.

Still, he took one step forward and another. “Only one way to know then…” He stopped right in front of the mirror, pausing for a moment to stare into some object in the distance. Mythal noticed a hint of a smile play on his lips. “Besides, if I make it on time, I believe I am owed a story.”

Solas gave her a last look of farewell, before stepping into the unknown.


	8. Epilogue: New Year

There have been no sightings of any elven trickster god on Earth so far. Thus, it is up to the reader to decide if Solas made it to his intended destination, or if he ended up in another world eviscerated by kaijus.

Perhaps we will never know.

Instead, this author will direct your attention to one New Year’s Eve celebration. One in a little apartment once introduced to you in a dream. The little apartment had become a little crowded with several strikers bringing their families and food.

Sunshine’s eyes flitted to their new friends trying to remember all their names to no success. These were Lavellan’s friends, but they were also her friends now.

Pinay Jesus, so they called her. The girl who rose from the dead to fight evil capitalist overlords.

There are less difficult legacies to live up to, but she certainly will try.

Outside her window, she noticed it just started snowing. The snow always brings flashes of memory--this time of a Dear Friend who stood out in the snow with her in another life, in another world.

In some ways, he was right. After all, it was Lavellan who changed her life entirely. Perhaps in some ways, some fantasies can change one’s reality.

Perhaps noticing her smile and her fingers trying to trace the trail of snowflakes on the window pane, a familiar little boy tugged at her sweater and asked, “Are you still waiting for more people?”

“There is this one Friend,” replied Sunshine whimsically. “I did promise him a story.”

“Stories are useless,” the boy remarked. “Ate, if he’s your boyfriend, you need to dump him unless he brings chocolate or money for chocolate.”

The boy’s mother lightly smacked his behind with rolled paper. “Juanito Victor Cruz! You’ve had enough chocolate already!”

A chorus of laughter echoed in the small apartment as the mother shooed her little boy away.

Sunshine rejoined the scene of warmth and camaraderie. Even days after Christmas, her new friends were still singing Christmas songs on karaoke. Then again, Filipino Christmas does not end until Three Kings Day. As she settled herself into the couch, her new friends sang the lines to a familiar song:

_Ang pag ibig 'pag syang naghari_

_Araw-araw ay magiging pasko lagi_

If we always let love reign,

Every day can be Christmas day.

While that dream may sound impossible, Sunshine knew that there were certainly worse dreams.

_The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you stuck with this story to the end, thank you so much! This story was conceived of as part of a Christmas story collection by a Dragon Age Fan Fiction Discord server I am a part of. While I had my hesitations writing this story for a number of reasons, I am grateful to those who encouraged me to write this. 
> 
> Though this started out as a revenge fic, admittedly, it became an interesting mental exercise, especially after occupying Solas’ head for these chapters. If he actually makes it to Earth, I do hope he finds a good therapist and some grief counselling.
> 
> Not sure if I’ll ever write a sequel. But we’ll leave that to the future.
> 
> Thanks again to all who read this, and may your 2021 be better than the year before that.


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